


….AND THE TOY SOLDIER AS JESSICA LAW

by TheWrongKindOfPC



Series: life! life! eternity! [2]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:55:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29319756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWrongKindOfPC/pseuds/TheWrongKindOfPC
Summary: Sometimes, the Toy Soldier dreams about being born.
Relationships: Ashes O'Reilly & The Toy Soldier, Gunpowder Tim & The Toy Soldier (The Mechanisms)
Series: life! life! eternity! [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2153655
Comments: 16
Kudos: 43





	….AND THE TOY SOLDIER AS JESSICA LAW

**Author's Note:**

> Begins a little earlier than JONNY D’VILLE EATS LIVE FROGS. Warning for depersonalization and general identity weirdness of a Toy Soldier kind.

Probably the soldier should have headed home earlier, when Nastya was giving Brian and the froshies a ride home, but it hadn’t been ready to slip back into Jess, yet, and Jonny had said it didn’t have to go if it wasn’t ready. Dr. Carmilla didn’t care much whether Jonny and Nastya’s friends stayed or left, as long as they didn’t need to be supervised or otherwise paid attention to, and Jessica’s mother wouldn’t mind on a Friday, not as long as the soldier made it home by ten.

Eventually, Dr. Carmilla yells down to the stairs to Jonny, “Hey, is your scary friend still here? You can set another place for dinner if it wants to stay.”

The Toy Soldier doesn’t mind being the scary friend. This is partially because not minding things is what being the soldier is all about, and partially because the soldier does the things it does — for example, dress exclusively in camo and gear from the army/navy surplus shop — on purpose. It’s not going around trying _not_ to be scary. Still, dinner with Jonny and Nastya and Dr. Carmilla is only fun for the novelty of seeing Jonny somewhat subdued once or twice before it loses its charm. The soldier likes its friends as they are, and one of Jonny’s main appeals is the larger-than-life quality of his personality. Seeing that part of him quieted can be a bit unnerving, so the soldier shrugs its greatcoat on, sends a jaunty salute Jonny’s way, and sidles out the door. 

Nastya’s still in the driveway with Aurora, leaning over where smoke is billowing up from the popped hood, although she looks up when she hears the door bang shut behind the soldier.

“Hold this for me?” Nastya asks, and the soldier obligingly takes the flashlight she offers and holds it up over her shoulder to approximate the angle she’d been shining it in before the soldier came out. The soldier is the only person Nastya will allow to help out with the Aurora — _the only one of you capable of doing what you’re told without messing around _— and so it’s not surprised when she says, “Okay, that will need replacing, come by tomorrow morning? It’s not happening tonight.”__

__Nastya doesn’t sound very happy about it — not the need for repairs, or the waiting, or the Toy Soldier — but Nastya’s not like Jonny, she doesn’t need to like things to accept their necessity, and the Toy Soldier doesn’t need to be liked as long as it’s wanted anyway. The soldier nods and names a time for the next morning before striding off down the sidewalk beneath the lightly-buzzing pools of yellow streetlamp glow. With each step, it works to shake some of the comforting, mechanical stiffness from its shoulders, trying to slip back into Jessica by the time it makes it to the back-porch door of the house three and a half blocks over._ _

__…_ _

__They screech into the school parking lot a few minutes late the next morning, but they get there with Aurora’s wheels beneath them, carrying them in, so it’s a victory anyway, and the soldier throws up devil horns out the window as they squeal into a parking space. The soldier rides shotgun — ousting Jonny from the front seat is its right on days when it’s helped Nastya to maintain the car. When they’d all piled into the van to head for the school building and Nastya had revved the engine to listen to it purr to life in the driveway, Nastya had even clapped a hand onto the soldier’s shoulder in congratulations._ _

__When the soldier makes it to JROTC for first period, just a little bit late and in a supremely good mood from the early-morning engine-arts-and-crafts project with Nastya, it’s surprised to see that Tim G. is back in the line-up for the first time following a two week absence._ _

__Before everything went wrong for him, the soldier hadn’t thought Tim was that interesting. They’d both started in JROTC freshman year, but while the soldier had stood out for not really caring about any of the things the program wanted it to care about while also not wanting not to be in it like the other handful of cadets who were there based on parental pressure, Tim hadn’t stood out much at all. He’d been quiet-ish but not too quiet, enthusiastic but not fanatical, and fairly universally well-liked — in terms of the cadets in JROTC, he’d pretty much been wallpaper._ _

__The soldier didn’t mind wallpaper — wallpaper was useful, wallpaper offered a pattern for an anomaly like the soldier to work off of in constructing its behavior. But there’s no reason to befriend wallpaper, either, so until the crash which the soldier heard, in odd, off-center whispers always directed at someone else, had been the result of a hazing ritual presided over by some of the upperclassmen, it hadn’t felt any particular need to take notice of Tim._ _

__He’s back now, though, and the soldier isn’t the only one who’s staring, a little bit, at the pattern of scarification on his face, mostly around his eyes, which must have been caused by the glass from the windshield in the crash. A couple of the other wallpaper-type students make some effort to approach him, throughout the period and after, in the halls, but he keeps his eyes down and his silence showy in its completeness, the soldier notices._ _

__Second period, the soldier skips with Ashes. It’s really planning on attending the class — it doesn’t have any problem with math classes, it’s English and History where it gets into trouble, since it can’t read anyone else’s answers to mirror for tone without getting accused of cheating — but when it reaches the hallway leading up to the classroom door, Ashes is leaning against a locker and twirling a watch chain, eyes trained in the direction they know the soldier will be coming from, and the soldier knows in an instant that it’s just gotten a better offer._ _

__Still, the soldier has enough unexcused absences that it’s going to start coming to the attention of Jessica’s mother, if it’s not careful, so the soldier hands its backpack off to Ashes and tells them it’ll be there in ten, then heads in to class to be marked down in attendance before asking for a bathroom pass. Five minutes after that, the soldier meets Ashes in the alley beside the school._ _

__“Thanks,” Ashes says, and “Up for a little shopping trip? I need lunch.”_ _

__They don’t do the shopping trick that often because it’s the kind of thing that’s less likely to work the more often you do it, but when they do, it’s fairly simple. The Toy Soldier walks into the convenience store first, and it wears its great big army jacket with its great big pockets, and it carries its great big backpack, and it smiles that great big smile that Dr. Carmilla says is especially creepy, and lets the store clerk follow it around with his eyes, and then when Ashes comes in a moment or two behind it and quietly swings through a snack food aisle and then out again while the store clerk is still watching the Toy Soldier, they walk out with lunch stuffed up their sleeves._ _

__When they’re about a block away, Ashes lets one of the candy bars slide down out the arm of their jacket and into their hand, then tosses it to the Toy Soldier with a nod and a, “Wages of sin, eh?”_ _

__“Whatchamacallit!” The Toy Soldier agrees happily, tearing into it and taking a big bite._ _

__They’ve still got about an hour to kill before everyone else comes out for lunch, and kill it they do, walking out to the public park a few blocks away where the crust punk who knows all those circus people is out busking and the air smells like the hotdog stand that’s set up near the road. They play the “what will we get Jonny to paint Aurora like if Nastya leaves her with us when she graduates” game until just before lunch, and then they head back to the school to meet up with the others under their usual lunchtime tree._ _

__The Toy Soldier actually likes cafeteria food, so it leaves its backpack with the group and heads back into the school to grab at the very least a greasy, wax-paper bag full of limp french fries to snack on, and it’s when the soldier is waiting in line to pay that it sees Tim again. He’s holding a cafeteria tray, and he’s looking in the direction of the table where most of the JROTC kids in their year usually sit, but he’s not walking towards it. In fact, he’s just standing there, for long enough that several people bump into him while making their way past him as the soldier watches. _Why doesn’t he want to sit there?_ it wonders idly, but even as the words are passing through its mind, it knows: he’s not one of them anymore._ _

__The soldier grabs its lunch, grabs its change, then, as it’s walking away from the lunch line and out towards the doors again, it grabs Tim’s shoulder. He startles, food jostling and almost spilling off his tray, so the soldier grins brightly at him and says, “Come on, old chap, we sit outside when the weather’s nice like this._ _

__Tim raises both eyebrows — slowly, around the scar tissue around his eyes — but he does turn to follow the soldier out, paying exactly zero attention to the cafeteria worker who yells after him that trays aren’t allowed to be taken outside, the soldier notes with satisfaction._ _

__When they make it back to the tree, it’s Ashes’ turn to raise an expressive eyebrow, but it’s Jonny who gestures to Tim and asks, “Hey, TS, what’s with Normcore? Have you been giving away our trade secrets?”_ _

__“Well obviously he’s not going to sit with _them_ ,” the Soldier says, flopping easily into a cross-legged sprawl and patting the ground beside it to invite Tim to sit, too. “He’s not one of them anymore.”_ _

__“Doesn’t mean he’s one of us, TS,” Ashes says, looking Tim up and down, but at least they don’t sound so hostile about it._ _

__“Well, maybe he should be.” The soldier isn’t really totally sold on this idea, but it wasn’t expecting this level of resistance, either. “It isn’t easy, being born.”_ _

__“What does that mean?” Tim asks, but the soldier isn’t really in the mood to explain. He’ll know when he knows, is all. “What does that mean?” Tim asks again, this time looking at Ashes and Jonny in turn._ _

__“Oh, don’t pay too much mind to what it says, TS is really just happy to be here,” Jonny explains, waving the question away breezily. “It’d be enough to make me worry for its peace of mind, if I was the kind of person who worried about other people. Are you the kind of person who worries about other people?”_ _

__There’s something sharp in the last question, like he’s trying to figure out how to categorize Tim. Jonny’s categories for people tend to be “like me” (Ashes, Nastya, Dr. Carmilla, the Toy Soldier maybe, Brian but only about half the time), “aspires to be like me” (just Marius, mostly, although the soldier thinks Jonny probably had it in this category for the first few months they knew each other), and “everyone else.” Tim has always, as far as any of them know, fallen neatly into the category of “everyone else,” but the past few weeks have left that designation feeling weird and nebulous and provisional, and by dragging him over to have lunch with them, the Toy Soldier has proceeded to blur the lines even further._ _

__In any case, Tim just shrugs in answer, casting a quiet, unexpressive glance in the Toy Soldier’s direction. “Not much point, is there? Worrying. Things happen when they happen, all you can really do is respond.”_ _

__Jonny pauses for a moment to digest that piece of philosophizing. It sounds sensible to the soldier, but it can see how the idea of there needing to be a _point_ to an emotional response might be a foreign one to Jonny. In any case, it’s a weird enough answer that he seems to decide not to push. Instead, he turns to Ashes and starts giving them a hard time about leaving him alone in World History last period. _ _

__“If you’re going to ditch, you could at least have the decency to invite me,” he whines, and Tim digs into his cafeteria tray full of highly questionable semi-lasagne, and the Toy Soldier tilts its head back to enjoy the sunshine._ _

__…_ _

__Marius thinks they should start a band. “We all have great hair, for a start,” he explains cheerfully, “And everyone knows that’s half the battle.”_ _

__“Sure,” Jonny agrees, happy to be flattered, “But none of us play anything, and I think I’ve heard that that helps, too.”_ _

__“Hey, I play lots of instruments,” Marius says, but when Raphaella nudges him, he goes on, “Raph can play piano, and Brian played drums for middle school band, I remember that. You can sing, Jonny, probably — you do all those voices —”_ _

__“I can sing, too,” the soldier offers. It’s a stolen voice, sure, but possession is nine tenths of the law._ _

__“Great,” Marius says, mostly brushing past it, “So TS can sing backup, too, though I should probably be the frontman because I’m the best actor here.”_ _

__In the interests of accuracy, the soldier feels honor-bound to correct him. “I think you’ll find that’s me, old thing,” the soldier says._ _

__“You?” There’s something in Marius’s tone that a person would probably be insulted by, but nothing like that ever touches the soldier. “I’ve never seen you act.”_ _

__“You’ve never seen me _not_ acting,” the soldier corrects him, but it’s bored already by this line of inquiry, so to shake it off, it takes Raphaella’s arm and tugs until she skips along beside it down the hall. Behind them, the soldier can hear Marius insisting, “Of course I’m the best at acting, you all think my name is Marius.”_ _

__The soldier agrees with Ashes, who it can faintly hear scoffing, “That’s nothing, who _hasn’t_ renamed themself?”_ _

__…_ _

__Sometimes, the Toy Soldier dreams about being born._ _

__In dreams, they’re Jessica again, for a moment, and Jessica’s mother stares back at her, and she opens her mouth, and she tries to sing and nothing comes out, and she tries to yell and nothing comes out, and she tries to cry and there’s nothing, nothing, and in the silence, Jessica falls away and it’s the Toy Soldier who speaks instead, and it has the voice of an angel. Jessica’s mother’s mouth moves soundlessly and tears fall down her face, and the Toy Soldier sings and sings and sings, and it doesn’t feel anything._ _

__…_ _

__But Gunpowder Tim doesn’t really join the non-band until a few weeks before summer vacation. The Toy Soldier hears all about it later because Jonny is in the middle of getting chewed-out by the vice principal when her aide runs in to drag the VP out to deal with _a situation_ in B hall, and no one stops Jonny when he follows her up to the hallway where the school security guard has already pulled a tearful, bleeding Tim off of an equally-bleeding upperclassman on the floor._ _

__Jonny says that after a second, the fight had gone out of Tim, leaving him just kind of limp and unresponsive, and that Jonny hadn’t actually known for sure that Tim heard him when Jonny slipped him the doc’s address if he wanted to come hang with their lunch crew after school when he got bored during his inevitable suspension. When Tim shows up a few days later, it’s the first indication Jonny gets that Tim registered the invitation at all._ _

__But show up he does, and when Jonny tosses Tim one of his old trench coats, Tim says, “It’s ninety degrees, you know,” but then he does shrug it on._ _

__“Sorry, but you can’t hang out with us if you’re going to go around dressed like that,” Jonny says, gesturing down at Tim’s clean-cut-looking _everything_ , and Ashes laughs._ _

__“Should have known that your objections were largely aesthetic,” they say, shaking their head, and the Toy Soldier looks up from its homework to see whether Jonny will be amused or offended to be so known._ _

__“What else?” Jonny asks, and then Raphaella is at Tim’s side with her new green nail polish and a serious little frown on her face as she appropriates his left hand._ _

__She tells Jonny, “We can work on that,” and Tim smiles for the first time since he got there, and maybe the first time the soldier has seen since that first day he was back at school after the crash._ _

__When Dr. Carmilla comes down with an armful of bloody scrubs to dump in the bin next to the washing machine, she does a double-take at the pile of them spread across the futon couch and the floor in front of it. “You’re multiplying, you’re like a teenage hydra,” she says._ _

__She doesn’t sound either upset or pleased in any way the Toy Soldier knows how to interpret, but Jonny doesn’t seem fazed by the comment, either. He says, “Yeah, this is Tim. Tim, my aunt, Dr. Carmilla.”_ _

__Tim waves with the hand Raphaella has finished painting, which he’s been holding over his head to avoid smudging, and the doctor nods. “House rules are don’t make enough noise to wake me up when I’m sleeping and don’t do anything here that will cause your parents to call and yell at me,” she says, lobbing the armful of cloth into the basket. “Jonny, when Nastya gets home you can order pizza, I’ve got to crash.”_ _

__When she’s gone, the Toy Soldier looks back down at its homework and reads, “‘Hamlet’s fatal flaw is that he didn’t take advantage of the time when his uncle thought he was harmless and crazy to really stab him, and by the time he finally go around to it, everyone was too suspicious of him to let him get away with it.’ Does that sound like something a person would say?”_ _

__Ashes cocks their head. “Yeah—yeah, TS, I think that’s fine.” They grin. “Hamlet’s a fun one because the story’s messed up enough that you can pretty much say whatever you want and it still sounds reasonable.” They pause, thinking, then say, “Macbeth’s good for that, too.”_ _

__…_ _

__Ashes has a simply smashing idea for kicking summer vacation off right, although Nastya refuses to drive them over the border to New Hampshire for fireworks, so they’ll have to make do with an approximation. “It’s not much further than you drove for that concert last summer,” Ashes wheedles, “and I’m sure we’ll all chip in for gas.”_ _

__Nastya raises both eyebrows and says, “I’m not not taking you because of the drive, I’m not taking you because I don’t want to be responsible if one of you blows your hand off. And anyway, I don’t know that Aurora’s up to any big trips right now.”_ _

__The Toy Soldier thinks the second reason probably makes more of a difference to Nastya, though it supposes it’s nice of her not to want any of them to get dismembered. But anyway, they’ve got bottle-rockets and they’ve got sparklers, and Ashes has a notion that if they use twist-ties to tie the two together, and they light them up at the same time, they’ll at least be able to get some sparks flying. Plus, doing it that way makes it a project, and the Toy Soldier loves a project._ _

__“Don’t you think,” Brian asks, “That shooting sparklers off could, like, set something on fire?”_ _

__Ashes shrugs. “So we’ll do it in that empty lot down past the cull de sac on Elm. No one’s ever down there.”_ _

__Brian shakes his head. “You know, I always really want to agree with those anarcho-punks who say that it all comes down to personal responsibility, and that if we trusted people, humanity would step up and figure out how to be good to each other, but Ashes? Sometimes you make me understand why people invented laws.”_ _

__“Why?” Ashes asks. “It’s not like it being illegal is going to stop me.”_ _

__Ivy points out that they can bring some water bottles and things so they can put out any fires they start, and Brian sighs and agrees to come, “Otherwise I know one of you will find a way to start a forest fire,” and Ashes laughs._ _

__“Pretty sure you need a forest before you can have a forest fire,” they say._ _

__…_ _

__After they run out of sparklers without managing to light anything unintended on fire, they end up lying on their backs in the scrubby grass, looking up at the sky as it gets duskier and duskier. Into the silence, Ashes says “I’d probably turn state’s evidence on Uncle Mickey, if they offered me a good enough deal.”_ _

__Ivy catalogues the new piece of information — the soldier can see her filing it away behind her eyes. “But it’s not _that_ illegal, is it, what they get up to at your uncle’s garage? Not big time, not like there’d be an FBI case.”_ _

__Ashes shrugs as expressively as it’s probably possible to do while lying on the ground and not meeting Ivy’s eyes. “Well it’s bad enough he’s coached me on my lines if someone does come around asking questions.”_ _

__“No honor among thieves, eh Ashes?” Jonny asks. His usual bravado is there, but there’s something else squirming underneath it._ _

__“Nah, you’ve got to be a lot nicer to me before we reach the level where I wouldn’t sell you out for a sweet Witness Protection deal.”_ _

__“Guess we’re all screwed, then,” Jonny muses, and Ashes grins._ _

__“Yup,” they say, really making the word pop and reaching out vaguely to pat at the Toy Soldier’s thigh. “TS is the only one of you people I like.”_ _

__The soldier lies back in the dust and feels like it’s glowing like the flickery brightness of the streetlight above._ _


End file.
